Microsoft Brings Xbox Live Avatars to Real Life with "Unleash Your Avatar"

Microsoft has unveiled three ways for transforming an Xbox Live avatar into a real-world item, be it a giant sticker, a custom-printed figurine, or an engraving on one's Zune player.

Time to stop buying Microsoft points and start saving up your real-life cash, because the company just unveiled a suite of new features as part of its, "Unleash Your Avatar" series for Xbox Live. The company is now giving its gamers the power to transform their Xbox Live representations into physical creations.

There are three such ways to do so in the opening round of "Unleash Your Avatar" connections. In the first, you use an online Web form to select one of ten poses that you'd like the avatar associated with your Xbox Live Gamertag to do. Provided every bit of clothing has been licensed for printwhich is an issue with some of the game-associated paraphilia an Xbox Live avatar can wear or useyou can then transform your avatar into a printed "Fathead" creation. In layman's terms, a fathead is a giant reusable vinyl sticker.

And just how large are these creations? The Fathead store gives one the choice of ordering four different vinyl sticker sizes, ranging from Mediuma two-foot by three-foot sticker for $80all the way up to Jumboa four-foot by six-and-a-half-foot monstrosity for an equally imposing price, $150.

Microsoft has also partnered up with Figureprintsyes, the same company that allows one to make custom, real-life models of one's World of Warcraft characterto bring that same functionality to Xbox Live. The deal is the same as before, in that you pick a pose for your little character to show off. Provided your outfit can be printed, you'll pony up $50 to receive a little five-inch (or so) figurine that's been carefully constructed from thousands of thin slices all stacked on top of each other.

The third and final option for bringing one's Xbox Live avatar into the real world ties directly into Microsoft's Zune player itself. And it costs, well, the cost of a Zune. When ordering a Zune from Microsoft's "Zune Originals" site, the company gives you the option to slap a custom engraving of your Xbox Live avatar onto the back of the Zune itself. This works for any Zune capacity size or color, but is subject to the same, "your avatar's content is restricted" problem as before. You had best have a great facial structure for your little avatar, as your wearables from the Xbox 360's various game-related rewards will likely not show up.

David Murphy got his first real taste of technology journalism when he arrived at PC Magazine as an intern in 2005. A three-month gig turned to six months, six months turned to occasional freelance assignments, and he has since rejoined his tech-loving, mostly New York-based friends as one of PCMag.com's news contributors.
His rise to (self-described) fame in the world of tech journalism began during his stint as an associate editor at Maximum PC, where his love of cardboard-based PC construction and meetings put him in...
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